[Translation:] This is a violent, wicked and inhumane action. It took place in a public area; a schoolgirl together with her peers attacked another girl, accompanied with unacceptable words. This is copycat violence, the behaviour of wild animals. We have to say so, and I think it is even worse!
After watching the video clip, I feel terrified. I am terrified at the fact that when a person was being tormented, other young guys just looked on. More fearful, they could calmly film the incident. And it is probably that humanity was completely lost when this clip was uploaded to the internet as if it was something entertaining, pleasant.
In this context, it is obvious that video clips of student fights will be a true danger for students whose fight is filmed as well as for the one doing the recording.
33Source: http://vtc.vn/13-241518/van-hoa/vu-nu-sinh-danh-nhau-la-cai-tat-vao-mat-nguoi-lon.htm (retrieved in March 2012).
Surprisingly, more and more clips of girl fights have being produced since then.
Students did not refrain from fighting or recording their fights at least until public anger at school violence diminished. The Tran Nhan Tong video clip was released on 10th March 2010. Another video clip of girl fight was released on 22 March 2010,34 just two weeks later, and another on 16 May 2010.35 In a more recent incident, a girl fight occurred in Vincom Tower in Hanoi in February 2011. A boy bystander reported that one of the perpetrators even proactively asked him to film the fight.
„I was going with my friend when I saw three girls from Van Ho school having a clash. To my knowledge two girls were attacking the other girl, so I stayed to watch. Then one girl came to me and asked me to record a clip of their fight for her (so funny!!) and I was willing to. At first it was a one-on-one clash, but then one of them asked me why I was filming it, and the other said „You are so beautiful so he wants to record your image.‟ Then they fought. Then the other girl staying next to me cried aloud „how come you guys do nothing‟ and then the fight became two girls beating one. Then they rested for a moment, then the girl being beaten claimed that it should be a solo, why should she be attacked by two. Then the second round started. That girl was heavily beaten and asked to kneel and say sorry to the others. She did so but her position was not straight so the other girls slapped her and asked her to kneel straight!!!
Then I went home so I did not know what happened after that.
34Source: Sai Gon Giai Phong online http://www.sggp.org.vn/xahoi/2010/3/221589/ (retrieved in June 2012).
35 Source: Tin Moi http://www.tinmoi.vn/clip-nu-sinh-danh-nhau-bang-mu-bao-hiem-06896600.html (retrieved in June 2012).
To my knowledge the girl beaten was new student that appeared to have a show-off attitude, so they [victim and attacker] stared at each other and made an appointment to fight. The girl beaten at first appeared aggressive because she counted on her gang. The other two girls were on their territory so they did not fear anything, that‟s all that I know.‟36
Despite the public concern for and anger about student fights, students still proactively record their fighting and then post images of their fight. There have been so many video clips that now the public tends to just ignore them. It has been given so much attention that it is losing it attraction. The clip of the Tran Nhan Tong schoolgirl fight held public concern for months, but the more recent video clip of girl fight in Lang Son province in January 2011 was reported on in the mass media for only few days – from the day the clip was posted to the day the perpetrators and victim were identified.
Watching various video clips of student fights, it is easy to detect that they have many things in common.
1. The fights recorded are usually not an equal fight between two students.
Instead, they are like a kind of bullying where one or more student(s) attack one, and the attacked students commonly offer no resistance.
2. Onlookers are present in all fights recorded.
3. In most of the clips, the perpetrators show a quite calm attitude instead of being angry, some even appear happy. In many video clips, the girl fights recorded are quite like a „performance‟ put on by the perpetrators. Some
36 Source: http://w1.caovang.com/clip-nu-sinh-van-ho-danh-nhau-tai-cau-thang-vincom/ (retrieved on 15 February 2011).
even make pose before the recorder during the beating, as shown in the pictures in Chapter 1.
4. Humiliation appears an essential component of recorded fights. Actually, the recording itself is a humiliation for the victim, especially when it is posted on the internet so that many people can see her disgrace. Moreover, in most of the fights, the perpetrators not only beat victim but also tear her dress off.
5. In most of the cases, the victims accept being beaten without resisting or trying to run away or calling for help.
6. Most onlookers just watch the fight without intervening – at least at the beginning, even though some of them appear to be friends of the victim.
Only after the beating goes on for a little while will they – if they are friend of victim – try to stop the perpetrator. If onlookers are on the perpetrator‟s side, it is very likely that they will encourage the beating and mock the victim. If the victim dares to fight back, bystanders may join to beat victim.
The fact that some perpetrators treat their beating their opponents as a performance for the purpose of showing off suggests some students consider violence as a value that can help improve their social image. This is partly due to a popular conception among high school students that equates violence with power. Traditionally, power is valued mostly among boys in Vietnam. However, girls now seem to value power through violence as well.
[Interviewer]: How come they [girl perpetrators] dared to let their peers record such incident and then upload it to the internet? Doing so they may be detected and punished, right?
They want to assert themselves. Girls nowadays are no different from boys.
They also used weapon to fight. In the past, girls fought girls, boys fought boys. But now a girl also fights against a boy‟ (Boy, grade 12, academic performance: average)
It is noteworthy that not every perpetrator in a girl fight is interested in beating, particularly those in fights which were not recorded. Most of the girl perpetrators with whom I talked claimed that resorting to violence was a required move, not something they did just for fun. They had to resort to violence because, according to their view, it is the only proper way to stop the provocation of their opponents, the proper way to save face after a provocation. Besides, it is a required response that everyone expects from them, and if they do not perform, their peers will pass negative judgement on them.
„I don‟t want to be involved in fighting, but I had no choice. She kept provoking me. She wanted to challenge me because I was more popular than her. If I had not beaten her up, she would have never stopped. And what would others think of me if I had not? I had to do so [beating up her opponent].‟ (Girl, grade 11, academic performance: average]
The responses of onlookers filmed in these video clips are also noteworthy. It is easy to see from various video clips that many onlookers appear totally nonplussed as the beating is something understandable and acceptable. Even bystanders that are friends of victim show such a calm attitude. They appear sad about their friend being beaten up, but they are not surprised or indignant. Some witness friends of the perpetrator(s) even enjoy the fight, not seeing any problem with the fact that a fellow student was being beaten and humiliated. Explaining this reaction, bystanders often allege that the victim deserved being beaten.
The rule is that „if someone does something wrong to his/her peer, s/he deserves to be beaten‟ and „if s/he violates this rule (i.e. resists the punishment), s/he will be punished more severely‟. This seems accepted not only by the perpetrator who is angry with victim but also by bystanders who are alien to the conflict. This is one important reason why onlookers do not intervene if the person being beaten did not hold to the rule. Moreover, as some students told me, onlookers even join in the fight to beat the victim if s/he tries to resist the perpetrators.
„They [victims] dare not [fight back against the perpetrators]. Did you see many bystanders around? If that girl [the victim in a video clip that the interviewee was talking about] had fought back against the perpetrators, bystanders might join in and the beating would be much worse, so she had better stand up to the beating [rather than trying to resist it].‟ (Boy, grade 12, academic performance: good)
This norm, or at least knowledge of this norm, seems to be so widespread and powerful that even the victim accepts it. Some of them might not accept that they
„deserve the beating‟ but, being aware of this norm, all of them accept the beating once it occurs. That may be an important reason for why they did not resist it, or even try to run away or call for help. Specifically, if they run away, the perpetrators may arrange another beating and the next time it will be much more serious. Being well aware of this, the victim would rather accept being beaten and then everything will be solved and ended.
„Running away is even worse [than staying to stand the beating]. The next time they catch you, they will beat you more viciously. It is better to stand up to the beating. Besides, if you let them beat you in school, the beating may be endurable. If you try to escape, and you are outside school grounds when
they catch you, the beating will be heavy.‟ (Boy, Youth League committee member, grade 11, academic performance: good)
All these things together, namely the way perpetrators „administer‟ their beating, the way victims accept the beating, and the way onlookers respond to it, provide evidence that violence has become a shared system of norms and values among high school students in Hanoi. Hence, students in different roles in a violent confrontation (namely a perpetrator, a victim, or an onlooker) have an „agreement‟ regarding how things should be done. Thanks to this acceptance of the same norms, violent confrontations among high school students appear to be „co-ordinated‟ between all of the parties so that the beating from beginning to end takes place unimpeded, which allows the recording to be done.
In addition, a noteworthy incident showed up in a recently recorded girl fight: an old woman went by when the perpetrators were taking a short rest. The perpetrators greeted that woman in a very polite manner. When she left, the perpetrators continued beating and insulting the victims with foul language. Onlookers casually kept watching the beating or playing games in their hand-phone.
This incident supports Wolfgang‟s hypothesis on the subculture of violence, claiming that the subculture only operates within its community. Members of this subculture of violence only apply their shared norms and values in their dealings with one another, while they still behave in a conventional way towards people who are not members of their subculture.
Even though many aspects of the fight recording can be explained by Wolfgang‟s proposals on the subculture of violence, two questions remain: Why do only girls
record or let others record their fight while boys do not? And, why do the perpetrators do this when it is obvious that the video clip is powerful evidence against them?
About the reason why all recorded fights are fights among girls, none of them fights among boys, the students explain that boys do not record their fights because their fights aim at problem-solving only and are quite serious, so there is no need to record. In the meantime, fighting for some girls is not only a problem-solving issue but a performance indicator and/or an assertion of themselves. Therefore, some of them want to record their fight to show off their social position.
„There‟s no clip of a boy fight. Only girls keep becoming incensed over trifles. Boys just want to resolve their issues definitively, and that‟s the end of it. They have no need to record. If any boy fights were recorded, you would see that they are much more serious.‟ (Boy, grade 12, academic performance: average)
However, it appears that the main reason why only girl fights are recorded is that such fights often occur in a much broader time frame than boy fights. Girl fights usually consist of not only the physical aggression but also other forms of violence such as quarrelling which often occurs before fighting, allowing enough time for a bystander to think of recording. More importantly, girl fights are normally less serious than boy fights so the students (perpetrators and/or bystanders) tend to think that it will be no problem if they record the fight. In fact, in all the clips of girl fights, no weapon was used. The perpetrators only used physical power to bully their victims.
Besides, humiliating actions in girl fight such as tearing the victim‟s clothes off are a factor that makes girl fights interesting for their peers to watch. This component of girl fights, which students find interesting, in turn raises a „demand‟ for the recording of girl fights.
„Only girls record their fighting. It is for them not only the fight but also a performance. Boys fight to fight, so boy fights often break up very quickly.
Everything happens in a short time so there is no way to record. And no one thinks of recording. Moreover, boy fights are the same everywhere, nothing new or interesting to record. Girl fights are often interesting [laugh]… You know, sometimes they even tear the other‟s clothes, so it‟s very interesting to watch.‟ (Boy, 12th Grader, academic performance: average)
In summary, this study found that violence is accepted and commonly resorted to among high school students, both boys and girls, in Hanoi. There are a set of shared values and norms on violence as well as a shared knowledge of what and how things should be done in a violent confrontation among them, indicating the existence of a subculture of violence. Yet, further research is needed on a larger and more representative sample of high school students to conclusively confirm. The signals found in this study are powerful enough to think of the existence of subculture of violence. It should be noted that, once violence develops beyond the scope of individual choice to be transformed into subculture, its existence will be more durable and stronger.